Jer & Min Photography

Last night we carved pumpkins.  It is so fun to watch my children explore new things and to see the excitment on their faces.  Last night was especially rewarding.

I shot these photos with my Nifty Fifty (50mm f/1.8) in rather low light.  The lens did amazingly well.  I then processed the photos in Lightroom 2 using some presets I found on http://x-equals.com/blog/.  They have some great presets over there, I recommend checking them out.  That being said, the last two photos I wish I would have reviewed a bit more as the preset I used on them added some odd artifacting that I’m not too fond of and should have addressed.

More photos from this and our Halloween adventures may be found on our Halloween 2008 set.

I’ve noticed quite a few of my photographs are very similar to one another.  I’ve decided to help me broaden my horizons I’m going to attempt to participate in some photo challenges.  Looking for photo challenges I found PhotoChallenge.org.  I am going to participate in their November challenge which is to photograph manual labor.

I will more than likely post selected entries from my photo stream on this blog.  However, if you want to view all that I submit I will tag them “novemberchallenge2008” on my flickr account.  As of this writing, there are no photos tagged as such on my account.  I will post the first one starting November 1.

Saturday evening I talked my daughter into letting me take a few pictures of her.  While I was scouting out a good background and workable light I noticed she was occupying herself with some little leaf project.  I have no idea what she was up to or trying to accomplish, but I decided to take a few pictures of her gathering and transporting the leaves.  She seemed almost frantic to get it done.  It was fun to observe and the results were the best shots I made that evening.

My youngest son Gage has PKU (read about it here and here).  Sixteen months ago when he was born and we learned of his metobolic disorder it was a difficult thing to come to terms with.  An individual with PKU cannot eat the things that you or I can.  It requires a very limited diet for life.  He will never eat anything with any trace of protein in it and will only be able to eat a measured amount of some fruits and vegetables.  It will be something he’ll need to think about every day of his life.

My biggest concern about this hasn’t been the work or the change of patterns for us, but making sure he doesn’t feel isolated and alone.  So much of our society is based around food.  Family reunions, celebrations, parties, holidays, etc.  They all typically have big meals as their center.

To my other two kids, Gage isn’t any different, he just requires special food.  Last night we made PKU friendly tortillas for him to eat as we ate ours.  It was an event the whole family enjoyed.  Gage isn’t alone.

Tonight we watched a cold sunset.  I posed Brinci and Toby by it and took a quick shot.  My subjects (Toby in particular) weren’t too interested in posing, so I had to be quick.  I appreciate that they humored me as much as they did.  Tomorrow starts my black and white weekend.

I’m out of town for the next few days on a business trip.  I have limited time, so today’s post is a picture I took over the weekend.

With the magnificant color around me I’ve shot more color photos than I normally would.  This weekend’s goal will be to shoot entirely in B&W.  I enjoy these stipulations, they help me to focus on things that may not be so obvious.

When I first moved to Kamas, UT my cousins, wife, and I would go swimming almost daily at a place we called The Diversion.  It was a spill way that backed the water up a bit and provided a good place to jump/dive off into the water below.  We had a great time there each afternoon.

Saturday I realized it had been over 6 years since I last visited that place so I packed up my kids and off we went.  Our intention wasn’t to swim, but to enjoy the beautiful trees I remembered being there.  We had a blast.  The sky was very cooperative for producing an interesting backdrop to my pictures.  I am eager to return.

The entire set can be viewed here.

On DPS there is a photo assignment entitled “Leaves“.  During this assignment I’ve taken quite a few photos of leaves.  This is the one I submitted.

This morning I made this photograph on my way to work.  I was so excited that I found a place that framed the moon so well, I took a couple shots of it and got in to work and noticed a massive fail.  In my joy of the composition, I neglected to focus on my subject!  You’ll notice the moon is very soft.

Anyway, I was tempted not to publish this shot, but it serves as a good reminder for me to stop and think a bit more before taking the shot.

Fall has officially made its presence felt in the Kamas Valley.  We’ve had our first snow, leaves are falling off trees, the harvest is done, and everything seems to be settling in for winter.

Last night on my way home I made the following three photographs of the landscape.